Socially Engaged Art Event
Socially Engaged Art Project
As a final project in our University of Utah Honors Class 4473: Art, Action, & the Environment, we will be doing a socially engaged art project centered around protesting the Little Cottonwood Canyon. The project will mainly target University students, staff, and faculty. We plan to invite the Students For the Wasatch, a student advocate group that is against the Gondola, to participate in our project.
The proposed Gondola project in Little Cottonwood was proposed by UDOT as a result of a lengthy traffic survey in the canyon to help decrease traffic. It would consist of about 22 towers, two turn stations, and a stop at Snowbird, and Alta resort, to deposit skiers. After a lengthy review process, feedback from the public, and multiple surveys of the canyon, UDOT landed on the Gondola as their final solution to decrease traffic in Little Cottonwood Canyon. However, the proposed project is about 8 miles long, the longest Gondola in the world if it were built, and is expected to cost about $1.5 billion dollars. UDOT plans to obtain this funding via the Utah Legislature, and plans to propose a bill to receive such funding in the next few years.
This socially engaged project would be to protest the funding, and construction, of the Gondola, the negative impact it would have on the environment, and the wrongful use of tax dollars. It would also promote cheaper, and more environmentally, friendly alternatives, such as funding for electric buses. The project will consist of a booth in front of the Marriot Library, which will consist of multiple activities passer-bys can participate in. It will include a live performance of a member of our group dressing up as a detective, and going through a “crime-scene” of how, and why, the Gondola was chosen as the final solution. The booth will also include a photo booth, utilizing a polaroid camera to take pictures of students protesting the Gondola. There will also be a game of Beirut, that will quiz students on their knowledge of the Gondola. Finally, there will be stickers to promote why the gondola should be stopped, why students should care, and what students can do instead.
Photobooth
We propose a photo booth utilizing a Polaroid i-Type Instant Camera and film. We would do an a-frame backdrop with images on one side showing Little Cottonwood Canyon in its current state. This is where students would take the picture. Here they would be allowed to hold up a sign saying “Stop the Gondola,” or “Wheels not Wires”. We have enough film for 100 students or passersby. On the back of the polaroid, we would put an office label with a link to our website and a message about our mission. The purpose of the photo booth is to document and prolong the longevity of information on the Gondola Project to ensure that our efforts against the Gondola don’t become forgotten. As students take the polaroid picture we would take a digital copy to upload to our website. All the materials in packaging are able to get recycled, so there would be no waste.
Game of Beirut
This section of the art piece will be a game of Beirut (also known as Beer Pong), but using water in the cups instead of alcohol. Each time a ball is sunk in one of the target cups, we will ask the player a trivia question about the gondola or Little Cottonwood Canyon. If they answer this question correctly, they win a sticker. This part of our project aims to gamify learning about these topics in order to increase accessibility of this information, and uses stickers as a small reward to incentivize passers-by to play. We use Beer Pong (but with water instead) in order to draw extra attention from college students who will generally be familiar with the game but will not expect to see this in the middle of campus. We are asking for 15 ping pong balls in order to have spares when balls are inevitably lost, 100 paper cups, as this was the smallest quantity found, and one 8 oz bottle of red acrylic paint, to paint the paper cups to resemble the typical red solo cups used. We use paper cups instead of the aforementioned red solo cups because they are biodegradable.
Active Performance
Stop Gondola Stickers
The purpose of the stickers is to not only engage students to participate but also to promote our project and bring awareness to stopping the gondola. There are a total of two sticker designs that each bring its own meaning to our project. The first sticker consists of the idea of taking public transportation, such as the UTA buses instead of the gondola. “Wheels not wires” is a great slogan that brings the main idea out, which is what they can do to help stop the gondola. The second sticker idea represents why students should care and how the gondola will affect us all. The background of the sticker represents Little Cottonwood Canyon, and the deer drawing represents the wildlife we would be protecting alongside the canyon. The last three stickers were provided by Student From the Wasatch. Overall, each sticker design is an important factor in bringing awareness to stopping the gondola, and we believe that students will be more engaged to participate and learn with the promise of a sticker. Not to mention, the sticker will continue to be useful because we are adding the QR code of our course page onto each sticker. Students will be able to scan it and will be redirected where to our website they can continue to learn about stopping the gondola
